American Politics - Presidential Spectacle - Michael Rauch...

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Unformatted text preview: Michael Rauch 3/25/07 The spectacle is a type of symbolic event in which the details stand for broader and deeper meanings than what they seem to mean on the outside. The spectacle centralizes ones character and action. This causes it to be different than other types of symbolic events. A spectacle presents riveting and very often dominating characters through actions that give them their public identities. A spectacle draws the line between those who are observers and the person himself. The observers cannot interrupt the action of the individual or redirect the meaning of the spectacle. The most important aspect of the spectacle is the actions that compose it are not meaningful for what they accomplish but rather what they symbolize. It is important that they must be understood and impressive to those observing them. A number of modern developments have come together to cause the rise of spectacle in the modern presidency. The greatest of such developments is the mass media. They focus more of their modern presidency....
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